This is how I commemorated your second birthday on facebook: “Happy 2nd birthday to my beloved Clayton McQueen. My feet grew a whole size the year I was pregnant with you. And my heart grew 3.” I’ve been reflecting on this statement since I wrote it, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it couldn’t be more true.
If you haven’t figured it out by now (and maybe you haven’t, since you are only 2 and your vocabulary is mostly limited to one word: i.e. “Clayton, how old are you?”, “Car”, “Whose birthday is it?” “Car”, “Do you like cake?” “Car” etc.), you were a bit of a surprise to us. I don’t mean to overstate this, but, really, your appearance in my world was excruciatingly unexpected. It may have taken until now for me to resolve myself to being your mom, the mother of five, the mother of two sons and three daughters, a mother after 35—I mean, little man—you kind of broke a lot of my rules.
And yet... and yet... that forced me to really learn to love. Really. To open my heart to life, to breaking all of my plans, to embracing the moment and giving up control once and for all. And that was not a lesson I was likely to take lightly. Or gracefully. But here I am, reflecting on 2 years of surrender.
Motherhood changed me a lot. It stripped me down to my skeleton and made me vulnerable. In case you haven’t noticed (to which, I expect, you would respond: “Car”), I like to be in control. And I’m pretty proud. And everything about mothering you has taught me humility and acceptance. Your conception was a shock. Your gestation was completely unfamiliar (no morning sickness). Your birth was overwhelming (dude—you were huge—a pound bigger than your largest sister and nearly 3 pounds bigger than your brother). Nursing you was impossible and quite nearly a failure. You wouldn’t cuddle. You preferred your dad. You were as fair as the sun. I mean—who are you, Clayton?
I’ll tell you who you are. You’re mine. And you made my heart grow up, once and for all. It took me nearly 40 years (most people figure it out much quicker than that), but I get it now. Shut up and listen. Let people (especially your babies and your husband) be who they are. Be flexible (no really). Know what you want. Be in the now. Clayton—how can I tell you all you have meant to who I am?
To say I love you seems silly, trite, and completely inadequate. I love what you’ve made me become, but, more, I love YOU. You are exactly the person I prayed for. A rough and tumble wild man—boy who loves wrestling and things that go, the boy who is the image (face and spirit) of the man I love. I didn’t realize when I prayed for you what I was asking for. But it resulted in a person I couldn’t love more, a person foreign to me in many ways (Clay—did you take anything from my gene pool?), but a person that complements me completely.
You aren’t much of a snuggler. But sometimes when you are sleepy, you rest that little blonde head just there—between my shoulder and my neck—and sigh softly. I like to peek in the mirror, in those moments, and glimpse your thick, round limbs and rough blonde maleness against my big, dark length. You don’t look like you belong to me, really. And yet you do. You belong to me in a way that goes beyond similarity and stretches to symbiosis. You belong to me because, like the man who fathered you, you are light to my dark, soft to my rigid, calm to my storm. Something about that image in the mirror speaks to the core of who I am and always hope to be.
Little man, this is deep for a 2 year old tribute. You just rode by on your new Harley bigwheel and I can hear rumblings of distress over the delay of supper. Life intervenes. It always does. I am thinking right now how--had there never been you--our family would have had an aching uneasiness that meant something was missing. This weekend, we celebrate 2 years of completion.
Always know you are loved,
Mommy (Car)
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